Welcome to my blog. The fine folks at the BeyeNETWORK™ have provided me with this forum to offer opinion and insight into the worlds of telcommunications (telecom) and business activity monitoring (BAM). But as with any blog, I am sure that we (yes we... since blogging is a "team sport"...) will explore other tangents that intersect the concepts of telecom and BAM.

In this world of "Crossfire" intellectual engagement (i.e. I yell louder therefore I win the argument), I will try to offer my opinion in a constructive manner. If I truly dislike a concept, I will do my best to offer an alternative as opposed to simply attempting to prove my point by disproving someone else's. I ask that people who post to this blog follow in my lead.

John Myers, a senior analyst in the business intelligence
(BI) practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). In this role,
John delivers comprehensive coverage of the business intelligence and data
warehouse industry with a focus on database management, data integration, data
visualization, and process management solutions. Prior to joining EMA, John
spent over ten years working with business analytics implementations associated
with the telecommunications industry.

Recently in Business Strategy / Model Category

Last November, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood started making noises about a “hardware” solution to the issue of distracted driving as it relates to wireless devices. Secretary LaHood was advocating ‘disabling’ wireless devices in moving vehicles.

Now in March, LaHood is leaning more toward NHTSA a study before making any ‘harsh decisions as it relates to wireless devices. This study would look to determine if devices cause "cognitive distractions" to drivers and contributes to accidents and deaths.

I applaud Secretary LaHood taking the step to perform a study and base any regulatory decisions on hard numbers rather than ‘gut feel’. But I am concerned that LaHood and the Department of Transportation are focusing too much on consumer devices rather than other causes of distracted drivers. Some that I can think of off the top of my head are:

Pets

Food

Beverages

Shaving

Applying makeup

Children

I would advocate a simple solution to the problem… Move toward a nationwide standard to “double the points and double the fine” for any and all distracted drivers during moving violations. This would similar to the recent campaigns focusing not just on the fact that drunk driving is a bad decision, but a REALLY bad financial decision.

For those using wireless devices during a moving violation, the ‘detection method’ is to simply use the existing lawful intercept laws to utilize the voice, SMS or data records associated with a suspect’s wireless device.

Are you ready to have hardware in your phone or in your car to prevent the usage of wireless device while it is moving?

At this week's TDWI Conference in Orlando, the focus is on Emerging Technologies. The Monday Keynote presentation focused on the ability of an organization to use "nimble" development practices ( ... as opposed to Agile methodologies... ) and cloud based technologies to enable quick results.

"When the CEO comes knocking..."

Kevin Rooney's keynote presentation focused the results of an effort where a company CEO wanted to understand his company's position within particular insurance markets and how to increase the company's position within the market place via customized/optimized price points. However, many questions "loomed" over the effort:

Rooney also reached out to the team at Kognitio for an analytical platform that would allow for an initial "proof of value" and a minimal capital expense (capex) rollout into production as well as a powerful analytical platform to perform the types of queries required of the effort.

In this, Rooney linked a nimble development team with a power and flexible analytical engine to develop a competitive advantage application for his CEO is a timeframe that allowed his firm to capitalize on the opportunity and develop areas of competitive advantage.

Telecom Take

With the stated goal of many of the major telecoms utilize metered billing plans in the future, telecom organizations need to be flexible in their approach to understanding how those billing models will impact profits. It will no longer be appropriate to set metered or utility plans and then 'see how they do'. Telecoms will need to be flexible with "what if" management scenarios via either descriptive or predictive analytics to provide analysis on which plans will be profitable and which will not.

Powerful analytical platforms like Kognitio will be part of the solution. However, it will be forward looking analyst organizations that make these solutions possible. Those analyst organizations, with telecom BI/DW teams, can utilize tools within a nimble analysis cycle to implement valuable projects.

I am not a favorite of organizations that spend a disproportionate amount of their time and corporate resources in litigation. My best example is/was the the open source patent company that found it was easier to make money by suing those who infringed on their patents rather than actually implementing them.

HOWEVER…. ( and who didn’t see that coming…) I am enjoying the news that Tivo is once again fighting the good fight against those who would dilute the Tivo “concept” with their own DVR offerings. This time Jeff Baumgartner looks at recent legal action between Tivo, AT&T and Microsoft.

NOTE – My favorite quote from Baumgartner’s piece was the fact that Tivo has already collected $400m in judgments, final and in progress, from other folks who thought that Tivo might not fight it…. Reminds me of the story in the movie “A Flash of Genius”.

While I agree that ISPs have a business case for metered usage of data… I also think that North American’s consumer market has had “all you can eat” data access plans for so long that they will be resistant to moving back to a metered billing model.

How do you think that the revenue opportunities outweigh the poor PR aspects of metered usage?

This seemed curious to me since I didn’t particular view the MVNO play to be part of ESPN’s core competencies, but rather a distraction.

While price was the main reason I didn’t embrace Mobile ESPN, I found the fact that I had plenty of relatively free substitutes to Mobile ESPN content via equivalents (ie mobile web browser, desktop access). To this day I continue to ( …and according the Alleven’s piece many others as well… ) access the ESPN website via iPhone provide just as much value to ESPN as they attempted to gain with their MVNO (ie eyeballs and clicks).